Nova
by Liliac Copper
Summary: A-The Girls From Alcyone- Fanfiction.
1. Chapter 1

"Tom!" Kryn called, tugging on the steering column sharply. "Tom! Tom!" Her voice got louder as she flicked her sight back from his slumped form in the restraints and to the shield in front of them, and largely to the massive trees that blocked their greater take off. He'd taken quite the hit before they'd been able to board the ship proper and had regenerated well enough awake, until he'd been put under by the second round of medication from the ship's health monitor.

"Tom, you've picked a hell of a time to go soft on me, old man." She snarled eyeing a gap in the foliage ahead, as she steered the vessel past the towering vegetation and energy bursts that would splinter their atoms if one so much as brushed the hull. She turned off their comlink to the council fleet, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than the panicked voices on the line that would only fuel her anxiety.

"Shit," She whispered as a tree caught a burst and splintered before falling in front of them and she turned the thrusters on to max ground level, causing the vessel to tip and careen upwards, narrowly scraping the bottom hull in a move that would have grounded a rookie pilot.

The gap closed faster than anticipated and one enemy hopper sent a few more bursts before she righted the vessel and closed her hand around the hyper-thrust lever, hoping to whatever greater force be that it would work. She pulled the lever, yanking the steering column into her lap before hearing the groaning of the engines and the following roar that shook the vessel, sending it arching into the foliage gap.

Kryn leveled the ship, taking in the brightness of Lendar's double blood suns, and adjusting the screens for the windshields accordingly. She hit the auto button with her thumb before undoing her safety harness and watched the Nova Ship levitate itself to the elevation site, as she stepped to Tom's side.

She kneeled in front of him, minding the bruise forming on his defined cheekbone from the ambush, and slid the harness down to its relaxed state. She ran a hand gently along his jawline and checked his pulse. "Come on, Tom," she whispered as his copper curls brushed her brown fingertips, sending a shot of yearning through her.

He groaned, "Kryn that is the _last_ time I take you on an intra-system transfer." He nudged her hand with his chin before opening his eyes.

"You always say that."

"Well, I mean it this time. You're bad luck, kid." He smiled, accepting the arm she offered and allowed her to pull him to his feet. He clapped her shoulder, laughing lightly when she shrugged him off and moved so he could pass. "Suns, it's bright out there."

"Come old man, let's get you to bed. I'll mind the ship."

"Nova can mind herself." He said, stretching his long limbs across his body as he ambled down the narrow hull passage to the quarter room.

"Aye, but we need a live person to reconnect the comlink and sweet talk Devero into letting us turn in before heading to the council." Kryn smiled, watching the way his muscles pulled and bunched as he flexed. Tom was her master and copilot—a bond tighter than friends, but never able to turn into more. The council remedied cases of "more" quickly and efficiently, split the offending pair and parted them by galaxies.

"I'm serious Kryn," Tom turned his head before his bunk, opposite hers, "Kid, you did good and you need sleep. We've been running through Lendar for days now—and you got us out alive. I'll handle Devero, you're my rookie. I'll lock her down, go to bed. "

Shrugging, Kryn slid the dark graphite-colored curtain down her side of the quarter hall, and pulled her outer uniform off, and down her legs before hooking it on its peg. She slid into her bed and relaxed as her bare skin slid against the cool chenille sheets. She heard Tom turn on the comlink long enough to leave a report that they were safe and would be bolting down for a sleep, and turned it off again after answering Devero's question about how she was faring.

Kryn let the lull of Nova's anterior engine guide her to sleep, her last waking memory of Tom's cool hand brushing her thick braid back from her forehead and then ambling into his own bunk opposite as he muttered to himself, "never thought a kid would make me soft."

She smirked in response and slid into a deep sleep as the ship optimized itself for a deep sleep, the pressure increasing and then dropping before a series of delta binaural beats slid them from consciousness, as it locked in the elevation pattern and homed itself in for the time being.


	2. Chapter 2

How a sundarian could come to call Palir, hub planet, home, Kryn would never be able to understand, if it weren't for the relaxed feeling that coursed her body the second she stepped from Nova's lowering deck and onto the smooth metal surface of the landing pad. Breathing in the air, thick with the briny scent of the water, she sighed and then glanced at Tom, who was fidgeting with the shoulder bag he carried off ship, before jogging towards their commander's brilliantly robed back.

Devero turned and smiled down at his late arriving pilots, unfolding his hands and releasing two boarding passes for the OTS and handing them over.

"If I didn't know you two better, I'd have thought you were trying to miss tonight's festivities." He intoned, gesturing them off to their separate plexied relay cars on the hubrail's Onsite Transport System. His voice carried over the comlinks in the train's cars," remember how important this night is, we need to maintain the council's favor. I will see you both after the entrance."

Kryn sat on the bench in her cab, waiting for the train to stop at her wing of the academy. She pulled her family's comlink line and left a message that she was almost ready to see them, and would do so at the Council Gala. She was grateful for the ability to send her missive straight to recording, surely they'd question about her taking on the council robes herself.

She off-boarded the OTS cab at the appropriate stop, waved to a few faces, and skipped up the steps to her allotted quarters, throwing open the broad copper-worked door and smiled as the interior mimicked her home planet to perfection. Big leafy plants, large and small blooms alike, a bit of water trickling between the brown tiles, and a gentle breeze weaving through from her large window, beside her white bed—all of it harkened to Sundaria's warm, tropical atmosphere.

...  
Kryn sat down in the OTS, trying to move the mass of her curled hair to one side, showing the traditional cut that revealed her markings that danced at her scalp and continued in an inky swirl to her right shoulder and straight down her spine. All sundarian women had similar markings that would appear with age and then, with greater age, disappear.

She cupped her hand and breathed into it, scenting her minted breath, as the cab slowed before Tom's wing and she shifted further into the corner, at odds with the gauzy material of her gown's volume in the wind. And confused to how to act in the copper and desert rose gown that dipped low at the spine, and came to a high collar at the front because it was hardly the gear a pilot would ever don for any reason.

The door slid open as Kryn decided to weight the material under herself and she rose to rearrange it. Tom bumped into her backside, and placed both hands gripping the skin and fabric about her waist to stabilize her.

"Tom," she groaned, suddenly terrified that he could feel her temperature rising as a blush took hold, "please remove your hands." It was easy enough to handle claps on shoulders, high-fives when something went well, and the occasional nookie when she'd first started flying, but having him hold her, even if just for stabilization, his hands on her skin threatened her ability to remain neutral. And neutrality meant she would be around him, showing anything else, anything other than their bond as friends would risk that.

He pulled back quickly, as if stung, "Kryn, I'm sorry. Didn't know it was you- did you always have that mark down your spine?"

She righted herself properly and rearranged the hair that threatened to engulf her in massive curls, "Yes, it's quite common on Sundaria to be marked…" She bit back, a tad harsher than intended, as the cab lurched forward again, the great darkness outside engulfing them.

"I was on your home-planet before you were, kid." Tom nudged her with his shoulder once she sat beside him on the bench, trying, with little success to, make her lighten up. "We don't need to stay the whole time. You know as well as I, all we need to do is show up, mingle, you do your Ambassador's daughter spiel about the Global Economics and Trade with us backing the Council, do a few dances, and you're good to go. We can be flying Nova in the morning and headed out the Halefuri Galaxy by 1500, just in time to catch the relay" He reasoned until she relaxed against his dark uniformed side in the dark.

The clear cab approached the Hall, some light catching Kryn's gold eyes as she asked, "Promise?"

"Promise."

…

Kryn grinned as she finished the final set in the dance with the High Senator of Mon Brilia, turning to weave through the throngs of council and fleet alike, trying to forget how familiar and comfortable she felt previously on the Council Dialis . She sighted Tom's curly head passing towards the Air Room, pulled her skirt up in her hands and followed him, hopeful to head towards the Halefuri Galaxy. If they escaped the pressures for her to leave the Academy and join the embassy, she might get to drive the Hellenic Relay.

Speaking up there, in front of the entire assembly, on the subject of why the Academy was beneficial to the Council and by extension their Alliance was simple. She knew why, she'd lived both sides as the daughter of one Ambassador and one Councilor and now as a pilot on her own.

Passing through the Air Room, Kryn picked up a hair pick of black, curious, why Tom would have dropped it on his way out to the columned balcony. Hearing a pair of whispers, Kryn turned, made eye contact with a blue haired Lithian pressed tightly against a column as Kryn's copilot shifted against her.

Embarrassment rising, Kryn ran back to the grand hall, dropping her skirts and her smooth soled sandal slipped on the fabric, sending her to push out her hands to stabilize the fall only to find she didn't. Lark, the Galvarrian diplomat, caught her.

"It would seem you are Kryn Goldmoon, no? I would recognize that fall anywhere" He smiled as he swung her back to her feet.

Kryn smiled brilliantly before bowing to her old friend, "The one and only. And you are?"

Lark's face fell in mock disappointment, "You've forgotten me already? Has it been so long?"

…


End file.
